You can carry with you.

This past month we have been out of our house and living with my parents as the builder gets on with work on the extension. The dog has her two beds and her food. We have our now famous (!) blanket of course, my daughter has her two key teddies and I have my writing things. It’s not home, but we have everything we need.

I was surprised to see children had stuck up their pictures on the wall of the subway station they were confined in as war raged around them in Ukraine. If you look at the horrendous refugee camps in places like Syria, you can see small attempts to make them more comfortable. Wherever we are, we have an instinct to make ourselves a home.

Dogs work hard to make themselves a nice place to sleep in. Students bring their favourite things to decorate their new digs. Hospitals beds can be surrounded by cards, cushions, knitting, books, magazines and sweets, anything to take the patient’s mind off where they are, or why they’re in a bed that’s not their own.

Do you ever feel displaced or outside of yourself? Sometimes things happen that make us feel lost. Sometimes we need a light to guide us. Surround yourself with things or people that ground you, whatever they are, and make yourself a home.

As I read this morning, there is a way to find safety wherever you are or whatever struggles you are living with right now:

Just as the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the LORD surrounds his people, both now and forever.
Psalm 125:1-2 (NLT)